South Burnett wine producer Hillsdale Estate rake in gold at nationally recognised wine awards

After years of devastating loss Hillsdale Estate have landed on their feet, raking in gold and silver at nationally recognised wine awards.

Hillsdale Estate’s Kerry O'Brien and Tony Fellowes. Photo/Kerry O’Brien.

One of Queensland's smallest wine producers is making waves across the nation, stepping out of the South Burnett and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the state’s best wineries at two nationally-recognised wine awards.

Raking in the gold at the Queensland and Australian International Emerging Variety Wine Challenge, Hillsdale Estate secured multiple wins for its 2021 South Burnett Verdelho, taking out the champion Queensland white wine, best Queensland Iberian white wine (Spanish/Portuguese variety), and gold medal Iberian white wine (Spanish/Portuguese variety) categories.

The fresh victories follow a silver medal at the recent Cairns Wine Show, a key feature on the Australian Wine Industry Calendar each year.

A massive year for South Burnett wineries, Moffatdale Ridge also took out the Best Queensland White in Show for their 2021 Verdelho at the Cairns Wine Show.

Hillsdale Estate’s 2021 Verdelho secured multiple awards at nationally recognised wine competitions. Photo/Kerry O’Brien.

For Hillsdale wine producers Kerry O’Brien and Tony Fellowes it was a particularly emotional victory, after years of tough labour were met with devastating loss.

“When the we had the big October 2018 storm, we got absolutely smashed at the farm and we lost 100 per cent of our crop and had a lot of damage to the vines,” Ms O’Brien said.

“And then, like everyone else, we were hit hard by the drought and we lost 75 per cent of our crop. So two years in a row we’ve been decimated.

“We only officially became a producer at the end of 2017 and less than a year later we were wiped out, so it was heartbreaking.”

Entering the wine industry in 1998 as a viticulturist, Ms O’Brien said becoming a producer was for many years a distant dream.

“It was a dream of mine to have a little vineyard somewhere and become a producer, and we found that place about six years ago and we've just been chasing that dream ever since,” she said.

“We were so proud to get that acknowledgment of the quality of what we do. We put a lot of time and effort into our product, we do everything by hand with a lot of meticulous care.”

Now with multiple awards already under their belt, Ms O’Brien said they would next venture into their first sparkling wine, which will be developed from a rare and special heirloom variety of grape called Crystal.

Ms O’Brien said she’s held onto the cutting taken from a 120-year-old grapevine in the Adelaide Hills for the last 20 years, bringing them with her to the South Burnett from South Australia.

“It took 12 years for them to be identified - they had to be sent to France for DNA testing, since it wasn’t matching any data base in Australia,” she said.

“We had obviously had to go through the propagation and all the biosecurity requirements to be able to grow it here, and we've just got our first crop this year.

“We’ll be making a sparkling white wine using the traditional method and that grape will be in it.”

Originally published as South Burnett wine producer Hillsdale Estate rake in gold at nationally recognised wine awards